The facts of DDR3 and DDR2
Bluetooth 16 May 2007

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DDR3 vs DDR2

Now why do we need DDR3 when there is already DDR2 which runs well no existing Intel chipsets or even on the bearlake (P35). Well, the reason is obvious. DDR2 has almost reach its maximum at 1066MHz. Although you can overclock, it couldn't go much higher. As for DDR3, the modules will start from 1066, 1333 and later up to 1600MHz.

In the photo below, 2GB of DDR2-1066 sits on the Gigabyte P35C-DS3R mainboard based on the Intel P35 chipset. This mainboard supports two RAM types. DDR2 or DDR3. DDR3 memory currently speed up to 1600MHz (vs. DDR2 at 800MHz), It is expected that DDR3 technology to scale to 2133MHz. In terms of overclocking performance, the maximum on DDR2 at 1.2 GT/s, DDR3 at 2GT/s+.

DDR3 also offers better power savings. A typical DDR3-800 offers >25% power savings vs. DDR2-800. A DDR3-1066 consumes less power than DDR2-800. The current DDR2 requires 1.8v while the new DDR3 modules will require only 1.5v
 

Qimonda 1GB x2 sitting on Gigabyte P35C-DS3R (review)

Current modules available for testing are mainly DDR3-1066. Most of the vendors would not recommend DDR3-1066 as it has not much significant gains in performance except the power savings you get against the DDR2-1066.  In this set of modules, they are rated at CAS 6-5-5-15. DDR3-1333 is by far the preferred choice. That should probably be the default recommended settings for future CPUs running at 333MHz FSB. At a speed of DDR3-1333, we would expect CAS 6 or more to kick in. (DDR3-1333 would require the CPU to run at 333MHz with a 1:2 setting in BIOS).

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